Monthly Review, October 2022

October has been kind of a weird fast/slow month, let’s see what we’ve got.

Homestead

Honestly, not much. Did some minor repairs here and there (touched up the chicken coop, replaced a faucet, and so on), did a little gardening, and tidied up a bit, but nothing major. Pai’s been over a lot less, so I’m starting to clean up a bunch of her older clothes and doodads in her room to make space for some art supplies, but again, no big changes. When I get some energy up, I’m fixing to tackle some more outdoor stuff, but for now, basically the same.

Health

Feeling okay off and on. Had some pretty bad brain days, but getting through them. Been making it a point to take a walk for at least half an hour every day, which has been good for exercise, but bad for allergies. My blood sugar is hovering around the high end of what it should be, and I’ve been enjoying freshly sprouted mung beans almost every day now.

Games

A relatively light month in RPGs:

• Wrapped up our year-plus long weekly game of Stars in the Dark! Pulled off a successful prison break, everyone got satisfying character epilogues, and overall had a blast. We’re gonna have a chill retro chat this coming weekend about it, and maybe figure out what do play next!
• The Between rattles on apace—our Hunters had their dinner party with the mastermind Theodora Brathwaite (plus a bunch of familiar faces), and refused the call to villainy and cannibalism, firmly kicking off the final Threat of the game. We’ll probably wrap up around the end of the year, so, lots of excitement to come.
• Played FLP’s Alien role playing game (thanks to Jason Burns for running!), which was very cool. The system was closer to good than I was expecting :D and we had a great time dying and betraying each other for the Weyland corporation.
• Got to play The Zone with Kegan and friends on the cult stream just a couple of days ago, and it is SUPER RAD. If you’re a fan of Annihilation, give this a shot—it doesn’t require a GM, and the online app teaches you how to play as you go along. One thousand percent recommend.

I did spend more time playing video games, though:

• Baba is You — a fun little puzzle game that Nic picked up. I fell into it pretty hard, but the difficulty ramps up very quickly.
• Played a lot of Streets of Rogue. “Finished” with a bunch of characters, and had to delete it from my laptop to get my life back.
• Played through the Jules Verne 20,000 Leagues golf course on Walkabout VR with the Saturday morning crew, and as usual, impeccably executed.
• Gave Spaceteam VR a shot, too, which is very fun and SUPER hectic.
• Did a little bit of Beat Saber instead of walking one or two days, because it got late and chilly.
• Played Void Scrappers to 100% for a few days, again, had to delete because it’s too tempting.

And picked up a game of Android: Netrunner with Nic to see if we can get into that a little. The friction is a bit much to get started, but it remains a spectacular asymmetric card game.

Media

• Watched the first three seasons of the Lower Decks. Very good!
• Finally sat down and watched the Emperor’s New Groove. Not very good!
• Still running through the first season of Andor, which is one of my favorite shows in recent memory.
• Finished up the She-Hulk series, which was fun.
• Watched the Werewolf By Night one-off show, which was fantastic, especially if you’re a fan of old Hammer horror movies.
• Watched the new Tales of the Jedi show, which was nice, but probably moreso for someone really into the whole Clone Wars period.
• Caught the 1985 version of Bridge to Terabithia on youtube, which showed its age, but still, emotional damage.
• Watched the three shorts for the Blade Runner 2049 movie, which were underwhelming. Could have used more animated bits and fewer live action ones.
• Started watching Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities show on Netflix. Solid creepshow vibes so far—I only saw the first episode (Lot 36), which did the thing, well enough done, but wasn’t especially scary. Looking forward to seeing how the rest pan out.
• Watched Deadstream, which is basically “what if Ash Williams was a youtube streamer”, which was surprisingly better than I anticipated. Really gross, super fun, and if you’re a person who watches movies like I do, it definitely uses every part of Chekhov’s buffalo.
• Watched House of Darkness, which… if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the entire movie. The “twist” happens in the last two minutes of the film, so… yeah. Big nothing burger.
• Fresh. Hooo. I’m not gonna say anything about it, but I’m gonna say, just watch it without watching the trailer. You may think it’s a thing, but then it’s another thing, and then… hoo, yeah. Good stuff.

Work

Work is work. Nothing interesting to report.

Other

Nic and I have been together for five years on October 1st, and it has been amazing. We went out to a fancy tent airbnb for our anniversary, and the tent itself was nice enough, but the property it was on was crowded and noisy and we had to drive home at like 1am because we just couldn’t take it any more. But we still had a great time together, and will continue to do so.

Saw a talk by Ed Yong at UT about his reportage on the coronavirus over the last thirty thousand years (or however long it’s been), which was alternately depressing and inspiring.

We’ve decided to do a little outdoor get-together every first Friday of the month to try to get back in touch with some folks—we met up at Little Deli for some pizza on the picnic patio with Heath and Shannon, which was delightful.

We made it out to Pumpkin Nights out at Pioneer Farms on a weekday (wisely), which is kind of a wish.com Halloween version of the Trail of Lights. Much walking, very much farm allergies, weird overpriced acid lime cotton candy, an average fire show, and lots and lots of lights and fake pumpkins with just a little bit of cultural appropriation splashed in here and there to keep it spicy. Mediocre, but we still had a great time. :D

Plans

Lol no. Except BGG.Con in a week or two, woo!